


Still Our Hands Match

by Muccamukk



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Haldane and Jones Don't Die, Angst, M/M, Outing, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Strong Feelings About Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: With the nature of their relationship about to become public, Andy and Eddie face difficult choices.
Relationships: Andrew A. "Ack-Ack" Haldane/Edward "Hillbilly" Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31
Collections: Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme





	Still Our Hands Match

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Loose Lips Sink Ships meme prompt: "Postwar AU: The consequences of being outed."
> 
> Story contains references to the massive societal homophobia of the 1940s, as well as police brutality, torture and suicide (though none of this happens on page or to our boys).
> 
> Thank you to Margaret Nash and Jennifer Silverman for their paper "An Indelible Mark": Gay Purges in Higher Education in the 1940s, and to Lillian Faderman for Gay Revolution, both of which were very helpful in writing this.
> 
> Title from "Still" by Daughter.

No one had ever followed up saying, "You'd better sit down," with good news. The worst of it was that Eddie already knew what Andy was about to tell him, in essence if not in detail. He'd known for weeks that this was rolling towards them like a freight train with its breaks gone.

He sat down anyway, perching his ass on the very edge of the little Victorian loveseat in their sun-bathed living room, and staring up with a mix of dread and expectation. Andy was still dressed for work—every thread of the professorial tweed that Eddie teased him about buttoned up and in place, sombre grey tie knotted tight to his throat. An afternoon's stubble stood out starkly against his pallid skin.

"Christ, you look like you've seen a ghost," Eddie said. He reached up for Andy's hands, taking both of them in his and holding tight. He felt as if the deck had lurched out from under him and he was falling, and Andy hadn't even said a word.

Andy took a shaky breath and put his shoulders back. He had that set expression he'd used to put on when he had to tell one of the boys that his foxhole buddy had gotten it. "Maggie Collins called me at my office. Jeff's been arrested."

Eddie closed his eyes and let himself have that one dizzying moment of despair. That was it, then. The cops had followed the chain of lovers and friends, one queer to the next to the next, until they'd gotten to someone who could name Andy. "It was good of her to warn you."

"Yeah." Andy didn't say anything for a long time just stared at their joined hands. Eddie watched his face twitch, the tightness in his mouth and the way he was breathing very carefully through his nose. Andy was holding himself together through sheer power of will. This had to be harder on him. Andy seemed to expect a sort of fairness from the world that Eddie never had; thought that if you loved something enough, it was bound to love you back.

"Come sit with me," Eddie said, tugging at Andy's hands until he surrendered and settled next to Eddie on the loveseat. Like Eddie, he only perched on the edge, ready to fly up at any moment, but even so the warmth of his hip pressed against Eddie's was a comfort. They had this, together. For now.

"I think he'll talk," Andy said before Eddie could ask. "You've heard what the cops are doing when they pull one of us in. I don't think Jeff can take that. They'll offer him a deal, anyhow."

"Hope sooner rather than later," Eddie said. He thought of Jeffrey Collins, his sparkling blue eyes. How he always laughed and kissed them both on the cheek when they were over at his and Maggie's place with the rest. Eddie didn't want to picture him bruised and bloody and handcuffed to some chair in a windowless room. He hoped Jeff took whatever deal they offered him and went home to his wife. "Maggie can't do anything?" Eddie asked, though he knew the answer to that.

"She said she was trying, but..." Andy put his hand on Eddie's knee, and looked over at him. Usually they were of a height, but Andy had somehow made himself small, and now looked up at Eddie through the lock of grey hair that had come loose from his pomade. "I don't know what to do, Eddie."

They should have talked about this before, after the first arrest. They should have come up with some kind of battle plan for what to do if things got this far. Eddie had never known either of them to shirk away from bad news, but somehow this news hadn't been tolerable. Somehow they'd silently agreed to wait and pray and hope they didn't have to make any choices. Now it was too late.

Eddie took a breath, looked Andy in the face and said, "There's no sense worrying on an empty stomach, Skip. Let's make dinner, then we'll call that sister of yours, we can put our heads together on it."

* * *

Andy's sister Janet let herself in while Andy was doing the supper dishes. She must have come straight from the office, as she was dressed for business in a heather-grey pencil skirt and double-breasted blazer. She tossed the jacket over the back of the love seat before the door had even clicked shut.

"Well, boys," she said, and kissed first Eddie then Andy on the cheek. "Looks like you're in for it now."

"Yeah," Eddie agreed glumly. He'd been trying to think of a way out all through dinner, and had seen the same hunted look on Andy's face, but neither of them had spoken. "We prolly don't have long to think on it."

Eddie hadn't said much when he'd called her, afraid her husband or one of the operators would be listening in, but Janet read the news the same as them. "Cumberland County Sex Deviants Exposed," had been a highlight. Eddie assumed that pretty soon everyone would be reading, "Silver Star Marine Haldane Confesses to Sexual Psychopathy" or something in that line.

Janet had a notebook balanced on her knees, pen poised over it. Eddie didn't know how she could look like she was about to take minutes for the Women's Auxiliary when all their lives were about to fall apart, but that was probably the Haldane in her. Andy left the sink, sleeves still rolled up past his elbows, and sat in the armchair facing her, and the steely look in their grey eyes matched. Eddie hovered near the doorway between the living room and the foyer, not sure where to go. Normally, he and Andy would have shared the couch, but it seemed like Andy didn't want to touch him right now. Sitting on the couch by himself would just make that more obvious, so Eddie leaned against the door jamb and folded his arms.

"How much damage can he do?" Janet asked, and Eddie felt his temper rise at her talking about Jeff like he was the enemy, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Enough," Andy said. He was holding onto his knees to keep them from bouncing, to keep his hands busy, to keep from flying apart. "He knows what I am, and his word will be enough for the Trustees to fire me and put a mark on my file." Andy's beloved Bowdoin would drop him so fast he wouldn't know where he landed.

Janet made a note. "And jail?" she asked. She'd have seemed cool, except she kept smoothing back her sandy-brown hair, even though it'd been perfectly smooth when she'd come in, and was only coming loose now from her fussing.

Andy shook his head, a tight little gesture. He wasn't meeting Janet's eyes any more, and he hadn't looked at Eddie even once since she'd come in. Eddie thought he was going to throw up. "That'll just be his word," Andy said. "I'll have enough character witnesses to ruin him." Eddie flinched. "We were never in the scene here. We were careful."

Andy had initially talked about not coming out at all, for safety's sake, but they'd never been able to do it. It was too lonely with the two of them and everything else a secret. But even if they'd kept their circle small, and never gone to the few dingy bars in Portland or the nicer ones in Boston. They'd never even gone to the big parties. It hadn't been careful enough. Eddie had known better. He should have insisted, not let Andy's confidence carry him away.

"Are you sure?" Janet pressed. "Andy..."

Andy looked torn between not wanting to be mothered by his older sister, comforting a female relative, and honesty in the face of a crisis.

Eddie had been thinking it over though. "I'm sure," he said.

Both of them turned to look at Eddie, like they'd forgotten he was there. Eddie dug his nails into his palms, steadying himself with the pain of it.

"We've been careful. It won't be jail," Eddie said. "It'll be Andy's job, and mine, I suppose, not that that matters."

Andy opened his mouth to protest that of course it made a difference if Eddie was a bookkeeper at the ironworks or not, but shut it again when he saw Eddie's expression. At least he was looking at him now, and Eddie didn't feel so alone.

Then Andy turned back to Janet and said, "How much damage control do you think we can do?" like _she_ was his trusted lieutenant that was going into battle beside him. "What if I want to fight this?"

Janet flipped to a new page to her notepad. Eddie couldn't see much from across the room, but could tell it was lined with her backward slanted handwriting. He didn't need to read it to know what she'd say. She didn't either, but she was the sort of woman who liked to back up a hard truth with evidence, so she told Andy about other colleges in Texas and Wisconsin, about jail time and suicide, and young men barred from every state university in the country. How no law in the country would protect him, and next to no lawyer would take his case even if it did. Janet, it seemed, had seen what was coming and prepared for the day it hit.

Finally, even Andy had to surrender. He held up a hand, and she dropped to tapping the cap of her pen on the edge of the pad.

"All right. Enough, dammit. I've known some of the Trustees for ten years," Andy said. "I... I'll resign before this hits. They'll want to keep Bowdoin out of the papers. I guess we'll have to sell the house, or you can do that. That might be better. Better if we're not around if this hits the news."

Janet was nodding, talking about real estate prices, and legal powers, and Eddie just couldn't listen any more. He was picturing him and Andy packed into their maroon sedan, out on the road somewhere. Headed where? Eddie had always known that his tiny home town wouldn't have room for them, and he'd never wanted to live in a big city.

Maybe they'd just start driving and see where the road took them. Eddie wasn't in the kind of shape that let him do physical labour, but Andy could, and Eddie was good with numbers. They'd find something in a new town where no one knew their history. They could last there for a few years, maybe five or even ten, until the next scandal and the next departure. Then another new town, and another new life, and another after that. They'd be ahead nothing but years by then. How long would it take for Andy to realise that he didn't have to be in this life? Andy had always liked girls well enough, and could settle if he needed to. Andy could make a life. As long as Eddie wasn't in it.

There might be a few ways to shave a year or two of heartache off that one.

Eddie looked at Andy, studied the lines of his face as he leaned forward and talked to Janet. The energy of planning had kicked him back into playing a captain in the US Marine Corps, here again he was Ack-Ack Haldane, who wasn't afraid of anything, not even telling his brother he was a damn queer, which is what he was currently debating with Janet. "Better to get ahead of the newspapers," he was saying.

"Been thinking on that," Eddie interrupted. Again they both turned, again surprised that he was even there. He usually did follow Andy, didn't he? Well, maybe this was his chance to lead. Andy'd always said he had it in him.

"How's that, Eddie?" Andy asked, and he had an expression of such faith on his face that Eddie almost stopped where he was. Maybe stunned by the notion that Andy thought Eddie had cooked up a way to weasel out of this, or maybe just not able to say something that would lose that trust.

Eddie left the shadows of the doorway and came as far as the back of the couch. He had the light on him there, the warm lamplight of a room he and Andy had shared for three blessed years of peace. They'd read together on that couch, Andy's head in Eddie's lap, and Andy had fucked him in the middle of the rug where the coffee table stood now. It would be a hard thing never to see this house again, but Eddie's life had been filled with one hard thing after another.

"Been thinking I can cut this all off at the knees," Eddie said. He braced his hands on the back of the couch and leaned forward, ignoring Janet and keeping his eyes fixed on Andy. "I reckon if I go to the police, tell them what they want to hear, lay it all on me, they'll be inclined to let you be."

"Eddie, no," Andy started to say, but Janet interrupted.

"Will they?" she asked.

Eddie weaved his head side to side, but said, "Not if I tell them the truth, but I can spin a tale they'll believe, give 'em something good, excite them a bit. They like that kind of thing. By the end of it all, they'll be happy enough to think Andy and I's just room mates. They'd rather go for a nobody from outta state than a hometown hero, wouldn't they?"

He could see out of the corner of his eye that Janet was nodding, agreeing that it would likely work, but Andy, Christ, Andy looked like Eddie had levelled a rifle at his chest and had his finger squeezing the trigger.

That was fine. Andy would get over it. Probably. He'd get to keep his family and his shining career, and the esteem of his college. By the time Eddie got out of jail, Andy would probably be president of that Board of Trustees that wanted to dismiss him now. Or maybe Eddie could skip jail and give the cops a run for their money. If he made the coast, he could put to sea again. It would be all right. No greater cost than a broken heart.

Andy pushed to his feet and walked across the room towards Eddie, his expression turning from icy shock to thunder. The couch got in Andy's way, and he circled it. He took Eddie by the shoulders and forced him to turn and face him, holding on so tight that his fingers bruised Eddie's flesh. When Eddie wouldn't raise his eyes, Andy shook him slightly.

"No," he said, with the finality of God. "We do this together. We get through this together. I'm not... Eddie. No."

Eddie felt strangely stung, as if Andy had turned up his nose at a meal Eddie had made them. "It would work," Eddie insisted. "Save you a whole lotta grief."

"Jesus, Eddie," Andy said, and then he crumpled right there in front of Eddie, like he'd been gunned down. Instead of holding onto Eddie's shoulders to keep him in place, now Andy was holding himself up, all the strength gone out of his knees. His face was written with the kind of grief that Eddie couldn't quite fathom, a grief Eddie had only seen once before, when he'd taken that sniper bullet to chest, and neither had thought he was going to make it.

Saying now what he'd said then, Eddie took hold of Andy's elbows and told him, "It'll be okay, Skip. You'll see."

"No," Andy said now, as he had then. "We're not doing this."

"Can't you see..." Eddie started. Andy's damned stubbornness got under his skin like nothing else.

"I can't," Andy snapped. "I won't. I love you, and I won't sacrifice you for my damn career. God dammit to hell, Hillbilly!"

"Okay." Eddie closed his eyes, and let his head drop forward. Their foreheads touched and they rested there for a moment, both breathing hard. The agitation had raised a sheen of sweat on Andy's brow, and he felt a little feverish. He still had his sleeves rolled up from dishes, and Eddie had bare skin under his hands. Now that Eddie as good as had Andy in his arms, he didn't know what he'd been thinking; he wouldn't last two days without this, let alone the rest of his life. "Okay," he said again, then raised his voice for Janet to hear. "But I want you to write down in that book of yours that your brother is a goddamned pig-headed fool."

"Already done," Janet answered, and Andy smiled. His face was so close that it was all a blur of crinkled grey eyes and white teeth.

Eddie didn't want to kiss in front of Andy's sister, so he just tipped his head so that their noses brushed, then pulled away.

"So," Eddie said, "we're packing up and skipping town?"

"Like Bonnie and Clyde," Andy said.

"We should work on a better ending," Janet commented. "You boys have already had your blaze of glory."

"We will," Andy promised, but he didn't let go of Eddie's shoulders. "Eddie, you've got to stick with me."

"Seems like I do."

Eddie started to pull away, but Andy slid his arms down Eddie's until they were holding hands, and then led him into the living room proper. Andy sat on the couch and pulled Eddie down beside him.

He looked down at Eddie's hand, now encased in both of his, then up at Janet. "Can never figure out what to do around him," he told her, like Eddie wasn't there, except this time it was a joke and Eddie knew it was. "If he's too close, I can't think straight, but if I let him get away from me, we both turn into idiots."

For once, Eddie was glad for the closeness between the younger Haldanes, because it meant they were looking at each other, and Eddie knew too much of his heart was in his face at that moment. All he could do was grip Andy's hand and blink hard until he got a hold of himself again. When he did, he glanced over at Andy, who was debating with Janet about who was going to have the pleasure of informing their older brother that the family's favourite son was a fairy. How he could go on talking like he hadn't just said the most damned fool romantic nonsense, Eddie had no idea.

He supposed it didn't matter, not when Andy was still holding his hand.

* * *

Later, with all their plans made and Janet gone, they lay in bed. Andy had just made love to Eddie with a fierceness that reminded Eddie of their campaigning days—when each time together might be their last—and was now spooned up behind him, arms wrapped tight around Eddie's chest.

"Promise me something," Andy whispered, his breath hot on Eddie's ear.

Eddie knew Andy was asking him now because he was fucked out and happy, and would promise his soul without hesitating. What Andy hadn't ever seemed to have worked out was that he didn't need to butter Eddie up like that. Or maybe it was just that Andy liked to hear Eddie's promises. "Anything, Andy, you know that."

Instead of asking, Andy gathered his thoughts for a moment. As he considered what to say, his fingers followed the ridges of scar tissue across Eddie's chest, feeling them out like beads on a rosary. "These next few months are going to be hard," he said, at last. "Harder than anything since Peleliu. I won't ask you to promise to never leave me, men's hearts change, but if you leave me, I want you to promise me it won't be because you think I'm better off without you. That will never be true."

One of the things Eddie had come to understand in those heady early days in Melbourne was that Andy would never lie to him, though sometimes he didn't know his own mind, or understand what he meant. It had been his north star through two campaigns and all those months in the hospital. It was going to have to lead them now, too. Certainly, Eddie didn't have any better notion.

"All right, Skip. I promise."

"Good." Andy pressed a line of kisses across Eddie's shoulder blade. "That's good."

He actually sounded relieved, and Eddie wondered again how there could have been any doubt.

"Best get some shut eye," Eddie said, not wanting to talk about it any more. He'd made his promise, and it would bind him. "It's gonna be a hell of a day tomorrow."

For the space of a heartbeat, Andy froze, and Eddie could feel the knowledge of what was coming spark a flash of fear and anger in Andy's body, and an echo of the same in Eddie's. Then Andy wriggled like he was trying to get even closer to Eddie, settled his head on their pillow, and sighed.

A moment later, his hold on Eddie slackened, and his hands stilled.

Eddie lay awake for a while longer, wanting to soak in this last night together in their house, and wanting to run Andy's words over in his head until they'd worn a groove in his memory. When he thought he'd held still long enough to have imprinted it all on his heart, he followed Andy into sleep.


End file.
